Johnny Golden murder trial - Day 3 - Evidence of injuries outlined

A Cavan pensioner found unconscious in his home after an assault was hospitalised with bleeding to his rectum, a scrotal tear and significant bruising to his penis, a murder trial has heard.

A Cavan pensioner found unconscious in his home after an assault was hospitalised with bleeding to his rectum, a scrotal tear and significant bruising to his penis, a murder trial has heard.

The injuries were read out to the Central Criminal Court on Tuesday in the trial of a Leitrim teenager charged with murdering the 73-year-old.

Brendan McGovern (19) of Killahurk, Carrigallen has pleaded not guilty to the murder of John Golden on October 6, 2010. He has claimed that Mr Golden sexually abused him.

The jury heard the statement of Dr Jeremy Johnston, a consultant in emergency medicine at Cavan General Hospital. Mr Golden had been rushed to the hospital on September 7th, after being found under his bed in his prefabricated house in the rural area of Nedd, Doogarry, Killeshandra.

Dr Johnston said that the pensioner had a burn to the side of his groin, a laceration to his back passage and two rib fractures. In addition, he had swelling and bruising to the temporal area of his head, a contusion to his brain, bruising to his eyes and an abrasion under one of his eyes.

Dr Johnston said he was admitted to the intensive care unit.

The jury heard that Mr Golden never left the hospital and died of septicaemia a month later.

Deputy State Pathologist Dr Khalid Jabbar testified that the pensioner died under septic shock due to complications arising out of a long and uninterrupted hospital stay.

Dr Jabbar said he acquired pneumonia in hospital and this led to infections. In the days before his death, he suffered a heart attack and also had an elevated body temperature and blood poisoning.

He said his anorectal injury had healed following surgery and that his scrotum injury had also healed.

Sergeant Shane Heslin had earlier read out a statement that the defendant made to the Gardaí on October 19, 2010.

Mr McGovern said he was sexually abused by John Golden a number of times around 2004, after which he managed to avoid meeting him for years.

He said, however, that he had begun working in a filling station about a year and a half before the assault and that Mr Golden used to come in to buy petrol.

“He would ask me to call up to his house,” he said. “He’d also smile or leer at me if he met me at the filling station or pub. This was in a sexual way.”

He said that the pensioner had also told one of his friends that ‘I was hung like a stallion’.

“All of these things upset me, and a couple of weeks ago I decided to confront him about it,” he continued.

“Things got so bad in the last two weeks before Mr Golden was assaulted that I reduced my hours at the filling station to avoid meeting him,” he said.

Mr McGovern said that he went over to Mr Golden’s house on the night of the assault to put a stop to what Mr Golden was doing.

“His reaction was to treat me as if I’d gone over to have sex with him,” he said.

He said that when Mr Golden handed him a condom, he put it over his fist and ‘pushed it up his back passage’.

“I completely lost control,” he said, adding that Mr Golden then fell to the ground.

“I kicked him on the ground a number of times and then walked out the door,” he added.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul Carney and a jury of six men and five women.

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